Humphrey Ratcliffe was lying in a small chamber apart from other sufferers,

by Sir Philip's order. He was wounded in the shoulder, and faint from the

loss of blood.

Mary Gifford did not lose her self-control in an emergency. Like many

gentle, quiet women, her strength and courage were always ready when she

needed them.

'I am grieved to see you thus,' Mary said, as she went up to the low pallet

where Humphrey lay.

'It is nought but a scratch,' he said, 'and it has been well worth the

gaining in a noble cause and a grand victory. I have certain news of your

boy. He was in a Jesuit school. It was burnt to the ground, but the boy was

saved. In the confusion and uproar, with the flames scorching hot on us, I

felt pity for the young creatures who were seen struggling in the burning

mass. With the help of my brave companions I rescued three of the boys. I

was bearing off one to a place of safety when I felt a blow from behind.

This stab in my shoulder, and the pain, made me relax my hold of the boy.

'Instantly one of the Jesuit brothers had seized him, saying,--

"You are safe, Ambrose, with me."

'I knew no more. I swooned from pain and loss of blood, and, when I came

to, I found I was in a barge being brought hither with other of the

wounded.'

'But my son!' Mary exclaimed. 'Are you sure it was my son?'

'As sure as I can be of aught that my eyes have ever looked upon. I saw the

large eyes you speak of dilated with fear, as the flames leaped up in the

surrounding darkness. And I verily believe the man who tore him from me was

him who gave me this wound, and is the crafty wretch whom you know to be

your husband.'

'Ah me!' Mary exclaimed, 'it is but poor comfort after all. My boy may be

near, but I can never see him; he who has him in his power will take care

he eludes our grasp. But I am selfish and ungrateful to you, my good

friend. Pardon me if I seem to forget you got that sore wound in my

service.'

'Ah! Mary,' Humphrey said, 'I would suffer ten such wounds gladly if I

might but win my guerdon. Well for me, it may be, that I swooned, or, by

Heaven, I should have run that wily Jesuit through the body.'

'Thank God,' Mary said fervently, 'that his blood lies not on your head.'

Madam Gruithuissens had considerately withdrawn to a long, low chamber next

the small one where Humphrey lay. She knew enough of Mary Gifford's history

to feel that whatever Humphrey Ratcliffe had to say to her, he would prefer

to say it with no listeners.

And, full of charity and kindness, the good lady moved about amongst the

wounded and dying, and tried to cheer them and support them in their pain,

by repeating passages from the Bible, in English or in Dutch, according to

the nationality of the sufferer.

When Madam Gruithuissens returned to Humphrey's room, Mary said,--

'I would fain watch here all night, and do my utmost for all the sufferers.

Will you, Madam, give my uncle notice of my intention, and I think he will

come hither and pray by the side of those whom I hear groaning in their

pain.'

'I will e'en do as you wish, and send my servant back with cordials and

linen for bands, and such food as may support you in your watch.'

When Madam Gruithuissens departed, Humphrey and Mary Gifford were alone

together. The servant who had been sent with the news keeping watch at the

door outside, and Humphrey, for the time, seemed to go over, half

unconsciously, the scenes of the taking of Axel, and Mary listened to it

not exactly with half-hearted sympathy, but with the perpetually recurring

cry at her heart that God would restore to her her only son.

It is ever so--the one anxiety, the one centre of interest to ourselves,

which may seem of little importance to others, drives out all else. All

other cares and griefs, and grand achievements of which we hear, are but as

dust in the balance, when weighed down by our own especial sorrow, or

suspense is hardest, perhaps, to bear, which is pressing upon us at the

time.

Mary Gifford had often told herself that hope was dead within her, and that

she had resigned her boy into God's hands, that she should never clasp him

in her arms again, nor look into those lustrous eyes of which she had

spoken to Humphrey. But hope is slow to die in human hearts. It springs up

again from the very ashes of despair, and Humphrey Ratcliffe's words had

quickened it into life. Thus, as Humphrey described the events of the past

forty-eight hours, and forgot pain and weariness in the enthusiasm for the

courage and heroism of Sir Philip Sidney, his listener was picturing the

blazing house, the flames, the suffocating smoke, and the boy whose face

had been revealed to Humphrey as the face of her lost child.

She was haunted by the certainty that the man who had stabbed Humphrey was

her husband, and that it was he who had called the boy by name, and

snatched him from his deliverer.

This was the undercurrent of thought in Mary's mind, while she heard

Humphrey describe to her uncle, who promptly obeyed the summons, the

capture of the four citadels and rich spoil.

'Ours was but a little band,' Humphrey was saying, 'but three thousand foot

soldiers. I was one of the five hundred of Sir Philip's men, and proud am I

to say so. It was at his place we met, on the water in front of Flushing,

and then by boat and on foot, with stealthy tread lest we should disturb

the sleepers.

'Within a mile of Axel Sir Philip called us near, and may I never live to

forget his words. They were enow to set on fire the courage of all true

soldiers. He bade us remember it was God's battle we were fighting, for

Queen and country and for our Faith. He bade us remember, too, we were

waging war against the tyranny of Spain, and exhorted us to care nought for

danger or death in serving the Queen, furthering our country's honour, and

helping a people so grievously in want of aid. He said, moreover, that his

eye was upon us, and none who fought bravely should lose their reward.

'I thank God I was one of the forty men, who, headed by our gallant leader,

jumped into the turbid waters of the ditch, swam across, and, scaling the

walls, opened the gate for the rest.

'The men we attacked were brave, and fought hard for victory; but they were

but just roused from slumber, it was too late to resist, and Sir Philip

had, by his marvellous wisdom in placing the troops, ensured our success.

It was a fearful scene of carnage. I only grieve that I did not get my

wound in fair fight, but by the back-handed blow of a Jesuit. Some of our

men set fire to the house where those emissaries of the devil congregate,

and Mistress Gifford here knows the rest, and she will relate it to you,

Master Gifford, in due time.'

'Ah, my son,' Master Gifford said, 'let us pray for the blessed time when

the nations shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into

pruning-hooks, and learn war no more.'

'But it is a righteous war, sir, blessed by God. Sure, could you have heard

Sir Philip bid us remember this, you would not soon forget his words, his

voice, his gallant bearing. He is ever in the front rank of danger, nor

spares himself, as it is reported some other great ones are known to do.

And his brothers are not far behind him in valour. That slight stripling,

Mr Thomas Sidney, is a very David in the heat of the battle.'

'Let us try to dismiss the dread conflict from our minds,' Master Gifford

said, 'while we supplicate our Father in Heaven that He would look with

eyes of pity and forgiveness on the wounded and the dying, the bereaved

widows and the fatherless children.'

And then the good old man poured out his soul in prayer as he knelt by

Humphrey's side. His words seemed to have a composing effect on Humphrey;

and when Master Gifford left the room to go to the bedside of the other

sufferers in the adjoining chamber, Mary saw, to her great relief, that

Humphrey was sleeping soundly.

CHAPTER XIII

RESTORED

'Good hope upholds the heart.'

_Old Song_, 1596.

There were great rejoicings at Arnhem when Sir Philip Sidney came back to

join the main army, stationed there under the command of the Earl of

Leicester.

Sir Philip had been appointed Colonel of the Zeeland regiment of horse and,

to the disappointment of his friends, the Queen chose to be offended that

this mark of honour had been conferred upon him.

The character of the Queen was full of surprising inconsistencies, and it

seems incredible that she should have grudged one whom she called the gem

of her Court the honour which she actually wished conferred on Count

Hohenlo, a man who, though a brave soldier, was known for his drunken,

dissolute habits.

The Earl of Leicester made a jest of the Queen's displeasure, and only

laughed at the concern Sir Francis Walsingham showed in the letter in which

he announced it.

'Let it not disturb your peace,' the Earl said to Lady Frances, who, filled

with pride in her husband's achievements, was depressed when she heard her

father's report that the Queen laid the blame on Sir Philip's ambition, and

implied that he had wrung the honour from his uncle.

'Let it not disturb your peace,' the Earl repeated, 'any more than it does

mine. It is but part and parcel of Her Highness's ways with those whom she

would seem at times to think paragons. Do I not not know it full well? I

have said in my despatch the truth, and I have begged your father, sweet

Frances, to communicate what I say without delay to the Queen; my words for

sure will not count for nought.'

'The Queen had not heard of the last grand victory, the taking of Axel,

when she made the complaint. Ambitious! nay, my good uncle, Philip is never

ambitious save for good.'

The Earl stroked the fair cheek of Philip Sidney's young wife, saying,--

'Philip is happy in possessing so loyal a lady for his wife; he can afford

to let the smiles or frowns of the Queen go by. And here he comes to attest

the truth of what I say.'

Sir Philip had often to doubt the ability of his uncle as a general, but at

this time they were on terms of greater friendliness than ever before. Sir

Philip had, in a few short months, lost both father and mother, and he

probably felt the tie between him and his mother's brother to be stronger

than in former times. Had not his mother often bid him remember that he

came of the noble race of Dudley, and that he bore their crest with that of

the Sidneys--a proud distinction.

If there had been jealousy in the Earl's heart when he saw his nephew

rising so rapidly to a foremost place in the esteem of all men--a place

which, with all his brilliant gifts, he secretly felt he never had

filled--it was subdued now.

He did not grudge him the praise his splendid achievement awoke, and, in

his despatch to the English Court, he gave the whole credit of the capture

of Axel to his nephew.

The Earl always took care to have the room he inhabited, whether for a

longer or a shorter time, luxuriously furnished.

If the word 'comfortable' does not apply to the appointments of those days,

there was abundance of grandeur in fine tapestry hangings, in

soft-cushioned seats, and in gold and silver plate on which the delicacies

that were attainable were served.

Sir Philip and Lady Frances were the Earl's guests, with the young Earl of

Essex and Mr Thomas Sidney. The elder brother, Robert, had been left in

command at Flushing with the nine hundred trusty soldiers Sir Philip had

left in the garrison there.

'What truth am I to attest?' Sir Philip asked, as he came up the room with

his quick, elastic step.

His wife went forward to meet him, and, clinging to his arm, said,--

'Our good uncle was consoling me for those words in my father's letter.'

'And on what ground did I console you, Frances?' the Earl said. 'You give

but half the truth; go on to say the rest.'

'Nay,' she said, hiding her face on Sir Philip's shoulder, as he put his

arm tenderly round her. 'Nay, there is no need--'

'To tell him he is happy to possess a loyal wife? You are right, dear

niece; he knows it full well.'

'Ay, to my joy and blessing,' was the answer. 'The favour of the Queen is,

I do not deny, precious; but there are things more precious even than that.

But, Frances, I come to tell you I think it is time we return to Flushing.

We have had many bright days here, but I must soon be at the work I came

hither to perform, and there is much to do, as you, my Lord, know full

well.'

'Ay, surely, but we need not be rash, or in too great haste.'

'The investment of Doesburg is imperative,' Sir Philip said, 'and, if we

wish to gain the mastery of the Yssel, this must be done. There are some

matters which cause me great uneasiness. Stores are short and money greatly

needed; nor do I put much faith in some of our allies. There is a mutinous

feeling abroad amongst the troops.'

'You may be right,' the Earl said, 'but let us away to our supper, it must

needs be served, and afterwards you shall take the viol, and chase away

any needless fears by your sweet music.'

The Earl was always ready to put away any grave or serious matter, and Sir

Philip was often hampered by the difficulty he found in bringing his uncle

to the point on any question of importance.

When Sir Philip and Lady Frances were alone together that evening, he

seemed more than usually grave and even sad.

'Are you grieved, Philip, about the Queen's displeasure? As soon as she

hears of Axel she will sure cover you with honours.'

'Nay, sweetheart, it is not over this matter that I am brooding. Concern

for you is pressing most.'

'For me! But I am merry and well.'

'Will you choose to remain here at Arnhem or return to Flushing with me? A

sore struggle must ensue before long, and Zutphen will be besieged. I have

been meditating whether or not I ought to send you and our babe under safe

convoy to England.'

'No--oh, no! I would fain stay with you--near you--especially now. My

ladies take good care of me, and little madam Elizabeth. She is well and

hearty, and so am I; do not send us away from you!'

'It shall be as you wish, dear love,' was the answer; 'though, I fear, you

will see but little of me. I have much to occupy me. But I will come to you

for rest, dear heart, and I shall not come in vain.'

In all the events and chances of war, Sir Philip did not forget his

servants; and he had been greatly concerned at the wound Humphrey had

received, which had been slow to heal, and had been more serious than had

at first been supposed. Before leaving Arnhem, Sir Philip went to the house

of Madam Gruithuissens, whither Humphrey had been conveyed when able to

leave the room in the quarters allotted to Sir Philip's retainers, where he

was nursed and tended by Mary Gifford and his kind and benevolent hostess.

Humphrey had chafed against his enforced inaction, and was eager to be

allowed to resume his usual duties. It was evident that he was still unfit

for this; and Sir Philip entirely supported Madam Gruithuissens when she

said it would be madness for him to attempt to mount his horse while the

wound was unhealed and constantly needed care.

It was the evening before Sir Philip left Arnhem that he was met in the

square entry of Madam Gruithuissens' house by Mary Gifford. She had been

reading to Humphrey, and had been trying to divert his mind from the sore

disappointment which the decision that he was to stay in Arnhem had

occasioned him. But Humphrey, like most masculine invalids, was very hard

to persuade, or to manage, and Mary, feeling that his condition was really

the result of his efforts to save her boy and bring him to her, was full of

pity for him, and self-reproach that she had caused him so much pain and

vexation.

'How fares it with my good esquire, Mistress Gifford?' Sir Philip asked, as

he greeted Mary.

'Indeed, sir, but ill; and I fear that to prevent his joining your company

may hurt him more than suffering him to have his way. He is also greatly

distressed that he could not prosecute inquiries at Axel for my child. In

good sooth, Sir Philip, I have brought upon my true friend nought but ill.

I am ofttimes tempted to wish he had never seen me.'

'Nay, Mistress Gifford, do not indulge that wish. I hold to the faith that

the love of one who is pure and good can but be a boon, whether or not

possession of that one be denied or granted.'

'But, sir, you know my story--you know that between me and Master Ratcliffe

is a dividing wall which neither can pass.'

'Yes, I know it,' Sir Philip said; 'but, Mistress Gifford, take courage.

The wall may be broken down and his allegiance be rewarded at last.'

'Yet, how dare I wish or pray that so it should be, sir? No; God's hand is

heavy upon me--bereft of my boy, and tossed hither and thither as a ship on

a stormy sea. All that is left for me is to bow my head and strive to say,

"God's will be done."'

It was seldom that Mary Gifford gave utterance to her inmost thoughts;

seldom that she confessed even to herself how deeply rooted in her heart

was her love for Humphrey Ratcliffe. She never forgot, to her latest day,

the look of perfect sympathy--yes, of understanding, which Sir Philip

Sidney bent on her as he took her hand in his, and, bending over it,

kissed it reverently.

'May God have you in His holy keeping, Mistress Gifford, and give you

strength for every need.'

'He understands me,' Mary said, as she stood where he left her, his quick

steps sounding on the tiled floor of the long corridor which opened from

the square lobby. 'He understands, he knows; for has he not tasted of a

like cup bitter as mine?'

Mary Gifford was drawing her hood more closely over her face, preparing to

return to Master Gifford's house, when she saw a man on the opposite side

of the street who was evidently watching her.

Her heart beat fast as she saw him crossing over to the place where she

stood on the threshold of the entry to Madam Gruithuissens' house.

She quickened her steps as she turned away in the direction of Master

Gifford's house, but she felt a hand laid on her arm.

'I am speaking to one Mistress Gifford, methinks.'

'Yes, sir,' Mary said, her courage, as ever, rising when needed. 'What is

your business with me?'

'I am sent on an errand by one you know of as Ambrose Gifford--called by us

Brother Ambrosio. He lies sick unto death in a desolate village before

Zutphen, and he would fain see you ere he departs hence. There is not a

moment to lose; you must come at once. I have a barge ready, and we can

reach the place by water.'

Mary was still hurrying forward, but the detaining grasp grew firmer.

'If I tell you that by coming you will see your son, will you consent?'

'My son! my boy!' Mary exclaimed. 'I would traverse the world to find him,

but how am I to know that you are not deceiving me.'

'I swear by the blessed Virgin and all the Saints I am telling you the

truth. Come!'

'I must seek counsel. I must consider; do not press me.'

'Your boy is lying also in the very jaws of death. A consuming fever has

seized many of our fraternity. Famine has resulted in pestilence. When I

left the place where Brother Ambrosio and the boy lie, it was doubtful

which would depart first. The rites of the Holy Church have been

administered, and the priest, who would fain shrive Brother Ambrosio, sent

me hither, for confession must be made of sins, ere absolution be bestowed.

If you wish to see your son alive you must not hesitate. It may concern you

less if I tell you that he who was your husband may have departed

unabsolved through your delay.'

The twilight was deepening, and there were but few people in this quarter

of the town. Mary hesitated no longer, and, with an uplifting of heart for

the strength Sir Philip's parting blessing had invoked, she gathered the

folds of her cloak round her, pulled the hood over her face, and saying,

'Lead on, I am ready,' she followed her guide through some narrow lanes

leading to the brink of the water, where a barge was lying, with a man at

the prow, evidently on the watch for their coming.

Not a word was spoken as Mary entered the barge, and took her seat on one

of the benches laid across it, her guide leaving her unmolested and

retiring to the further end of the vessel.

There was no sound but the monotonous splash of the oars, and their regular

beat against the edge of the boat, as the two men pulled out into the wider

part of the river.

Above, the stars were coming out one by one, and the wide stretch of low

meadow-land and water lay in the purple haze of gathering shadows like an

unknown and undiscovered country, till it was lost in the overarching

canopy of the dim far-off heavens.

Mary Gifford felt strangely indifferent to all outward things as she sat

with her hands tightly clasped together under her cloak, and in her heart

only one thought had room--that she was in a few short hours to clasp her

boy in her arms.

So over-mastering was this love and hungry yearning of the mother for her

child, that his condition--stricken by fever, and that of his father lying

at the very gates of death--were almost forgotten.

'If only he knows my arms are round him,' she thought; 'if only I can hear

his voice call me _mother_, I will die with him content.'

After a few hours, when there were lines of dawn in the eastern sky, Mary

felt the barge was being moored to the river bank; and her guide, rising

from his seat, came towards her, gave her his hand and said,--

'We have now to go on foot for some distance, to the place where your son

lies. Are you able for this?'

For Mary was stiff and cramped with her position in the barge for so long a

time, and she would have fallen as she stepped out, had not one of the

watermen caught her, saying,--

'Steady, Madam! steady!'

After a few tottering steps, Mary recovered herself, and said,--

'The motion of walking will be good for me; let us go forward.'

It was a long and weary tramp through spongy, low-lying land, and the way

seemed interminable.

At last, just as the sun was sending shafts of light across river and

swamp--making them glow like burnished silver, and covering every tall

spike of rush and flag with diamonds--a few straggling cottages or huts

came in sight.

A clump of pollards hid the cluster of buildings which formed the nucleus

of the little hamlet, till they were actually before a low, irregular block

of cottages, and at the door of one of these Mary's guide stopped.

'A few of our brethren took refuge here after the taking of Axel and the

burning of our habitation there. We are under the protection of the Duke of

Parma, who is advancing with an army for the relief of Zutphen, and will,

as we believe, drive from before us the foes of the Holy Church.'

As they passed under the low doorway into a narrow entry paved with clay,

Mary's guide said,--

'Tarry here, while I find what has passed in my absence.'

Mary was not left long in suspense.

The man presently returned, and, beckoning her, said,--

'Come, without delay!'

Mary found herself in a low, miserably furnished room on the ground-floor,

where, in the now clear light of the bright summer morning, Ambrose Gifford

lay dying.

The 'large, cruel, black eyes,' as Lucy Forrester had called them long ago,

were dim now, and were turned with pitiful pleading upon the wife he had so

grievously injured.

The priest stood by, and signed to Mary to kneel and put her face near her

husband, that she might hear what he had to say.

As she obeyed, the hood fell back from her head, and a ray of sunshine

caught the wealth of her rich chestnut hair and made an aureole round it.

The grey streaks, which sorrow rather than years, had mingled amongst the

bronze locks, shone like silver. She took the long, wasted hand in hers,

and, in a low, clear voice, said,--

'I am here, Ambrose! what would you say to me?'

'The boy!' he gasped; 'fetch hither the boy!'

One of the Brothers obeyed the dying man's request, and from a pallet at

the farther end of the room he brought the boy, whose cheeks were aflame

with fever, as he lay helpless in the Brother's arms.

'Here, Ambrose,' the dying father said--'this--this is your mother; be a

good son to her.'

Often as Mary Gifford had drawn a picture in her own mind of this possible

meeting with her son, so long delayed, such a meeting as this had never

been imagined in her wildest dreams.

'Thus, then, I make atonement,' the unhappy man said. 'Take him, Mary, and

forgive it _all_.'

'Yes,' Mary said, as the boy was laid on the pallet at his father's feet,

and his mother clasped him close to her side. 'Yes, I forgive--'

'_All?_' he said. '_All?_'

'As I pray God to be forgiven,' she said, womanly pity for this forlorn

ending of a misspent life thrilling in her voice, as hot tears coursed one

another down her pale sweet face. 'Yes,' she repeated, '_all_! Ambrose.'

'One thing more. Did I murder Humphrey Ratcliffe? Does that sin lie on my

soul?'

'No, thank God!' Mary said. 'He lives; he was cruelly wounded, but God

spared his life.'

There was silence now. The priest bid Mary move from the bed, and let him

approach; but, before she did so, she bent over her husband and said,--

'Have you gone to the Saviour of the world for forgiveness through His

precious blood, Ambrose? He alone can forgive sins.'

'I know it! I know it!' was the reply.

But the priest interfered now.

'Withdraw, my daughter, for the end is near.'

Then Mary, bending still lower, pressed a kiss upon the forehead, where the

cold dews of death were gathering, and, turning towards her boy, she

said,--

'Where shall I take him? Where can I go with him, my son, my son?'

There was something in Mary's self-restraint and in the pathetic tones of

her voice, which moved those who stood around to pity as she repeated,--

'Where can I find a refuge with my child? I cannot remain here with him.'

One of the Brothers raised Ambrose again in his arms, and saying, 'Follow

me,' he carried him to a small chamber on the upper floor, where he laid

him down on a heap of straw covered with an old sacking, and said in

English,--

'This is all I can do for you. Yonder room whence we came is kept for those

stricken with the fever. Two of them died yesterday. We were burned out of

house and home, and our oratory sacked and destroyed at Axel. We fled

hither, and a troop of the Duke's army is within a mile to protect us.'

'Is there no leech at hand, no one to care for my child?'

'There was one here yester eve. He is attached to the troop I speak of, and

has enow to do with the sick there. Famine and moisture have done their

work, and God knows where it will end. There is a good woman at a small

homestead not a mile away. She has kept us from starving, and, like many of

the Hollanders, has a kind heart. I will do my best to get her to befriend

you, Mistress, for I see you are in a sorry plight.'

'Even water to wet his lips would be a boon. I pray you fetch water,' she

entreated.

The man disappeared, and presently returned with a rough pitcher of water

and a flagon in which, he said, was a little drink prepared from herbs by

the kindly Vrouw he had spoken of.

'I will seek her as quickly as other claims permit,' he said. And then Mary

was left alone with her boy.

The restlessness of fever was followed by a spell of utter exhaustion, but

the delirious murmurs ceased, and a light of consciousness came into those

large, lustrous eyes, by which Mary knew this was indeed her son.

Otherwise, what a change from the rosy, happy child of seven, full of life

and vigour, to the emaciated boy of twelve, whose face was prematurely old,

and, unshaded by the once abundant hair, which had been close cropped to

his head, looked ghostly and unfamiliar.

Still, he was hers once more, and she took off the ragged black gown, which

had been the uniform of the scholars of the Jesuit school, and was now only

fit for the fire, and taking off her own cloak, she wrapped him in it,

bathed his face with water, put the herb cordial to his lips, and then,

setting herself on an old chair, the only furniture in the tumbledown

attic, she raised Ambrose on her knees, and, whispering loving words and

prayers over him, hungered for a sign of recognition.

Evidently the poor boy's weary brain was awakened by some magnetic power to

a consciousness that some lost clue of his happy childhood had been

restored to him.

As his head lay against his mother's breast the rest there was apparently

sweet.

He sighed as if contented, closed his eyes and slept.

Mary dare not move or scarcely breathe, lest she should disturb the slumber

in which, as she gazed upon his face, the features of her lost child seemed

to come out with more certain likeness to her Ambrose of past years.

For a smile played round the scarlet lips, and the long, dark fringe of the

lashes resting on his cheeks, brought back the many times in the old home

when she had seen them shadow the rounded rosy cheeks of his infant days.

A mother's love knows no weariness, and, as the hours passed and Ambrose

still slept, Mary forgot her aching back and arms, her forlorn position in

that desolate attic, even the painful ordeal she had gone through by her

husband's dying bed--forgot everything but the joy that, whether for life

or death, her boy was restored to her.

At last Ambrose stirred, and the smile faded from his lips. He raised his

head and gazed up into the face bending over him.

'I dreamed,' he faltered; 'I dreamed I saw my _mother_--my _mother_.' He

repeated the word with a feeble cry--_my mother_; 'but it's only a dream. I

have no mother but the blessed Virgin, and she--she is so far, far away, up

in Heaven.'

'Ambrose, my sweetheart, my son!' Mary said gently. 'I am not far away; I

am here! Your own mother.'

'It's good of you to come down from Heaven, mother; take me--take me back

with you. I am so--so weary--weary; and I can't say all the Latin prayers

to you; I can't.'

'Ambrose,' poor Mary said, 'you need say no more Latin prayers; you are

with me, your own mother, on earth.'

The wave of remembrance grew stronger, and, after a moment's pause, Ambrose

said,--

'Ned brought me two speckled eggs. The hawk caught the poor little bird;

the cruel hawk. Where am I? _Ave Maria, ora pro nobis._'

'Say rather, dear child, "Dear Father in heaven, bless me, and keep me."'

'Yes, yes; that is the prayer I said by--'

'_Me_--me, your own mother.'

The long-deferred hope was at last fulfilled, and Mary Gifford tasted the

very fruit of the tree of life, as Ambrose, with full consciousness, gazed

long and earnestly at her, and said,--

'Yes, you are my mother, my own mother; not a dream.'

'Ah! say it again, my child, my child.'

'My own mother,' the boy repeated, raising his thin hand and stroking his

mother's face, where tears were now running down unchecked, tears of

thankfulness; such as, for many a long year, she had never shed.

With such bliss the stranger cannot intermeddle; but mothers who have had a

child restored to them from the very borders of the unseen land will know

what Mary Gifford felt.

CHAPTER XIV

WHAT RIGHT?

'Her look and countenance was settled, her face soft, and almost

still, of one measure! without any passionate gesture or violent

motion, till at length, as it were, awakening and strengthening

herself, "Well," she said, "yet this is best; and of this I am

sure, that, however they wrong me, they cannot overmaster God. No

darkness blinds His eyes, no gaol bars Him out; to whom else

should I fly but to Him for succour."'--_The Arcadia._

The Countess of Pembroke was sitting in the chamber which overlooked the

pleasance at Penshurst and the raised terrace above it, on a quiet autumn

day of the year of 1586.

She had come to her early home to arrange the letters and papers which her

mother, Lady Mary, had committed to her care on her deathbed.

There were other matters, too, which demanded her attention, and which the

Earl was only too glad to help her to settle; he was now in London for that

purpose.

There were many difficulties to meet in the division of the property, and

Sir Henry had been so terribly hampered by the want of money, that debts

sprang up on every side.

Lady Pembroke had great administrative power, and, added to her other

gifts, a remarkable clearheadedness and discernment.

The sombre mourning which she wore accentuated her beauty, and set off the

lovely pink-and-white of her complexion, and the radiant hair, which was,

as she laughingly told her brother, 'the badge of the Sidneys.'

The profound stillness which brooded over Penshurst suited Lady Pembroke's

mood, and, looking out from the casement, she saw Lucy Forrester, playing

ball with her boy Will on the terrace. Lucy's light and agile figure was

seen to great advantage as she sprang forward or ran backward, to catch the

ball from the boy's hands. His laughter rang through the still air as, at

last, Lucy missed the catch, and then Lady Pembroke saw him run down the

steps leading to the pleasance below to meet George Ratcliffe, who was

coming in from the entrance on that side of the park.

Lady Pembroke smiled as she saw George advance with his cap in his hand

towards Lucy. His stalwart figure was set off by the short green tunic he

wore, and a sheaf of arrows at his side, and a bow strapped across his

broad shoulders, showed that he had been shooting in the woods.

Only a few words were exchanged, and then Lucy turned, and, leaving George

with little Will Herbert, she came swiftly toward the house, and Lady

Pembroke presently heard her quick, light tread in the corridor on which

her room opened.

'Madam!' Lucy said, entering breathlessly, 'I bear a letter from Humphrey

to his brother; it has great news for me. Mary has found her boy, and that

evil man, Ambrose Gifford, is dead. Will it please you to hear the letter.

I can scarcely contain my joy that Mary has found her child; he was her

idol, and I began to despair that she would ever set eyes on him again.'

Lady Pembroke was never too full of her own interests to be unable to enter

into those of her ladies and dependants.

'I am right glad, Lucy,' she said. 'Let me hear what good Humphrey has to

say, and, perchance, there will be mention of my brothers in the letter.

Read it, Lucy. I am all impatience to hear;' and Lucy read, not without

difficulty, the large sheet of parchment, which had been sent, with other

documents, from the seat of war by special messenger.

* * * * *

'To my good brother, George Ratcliffe, from before Zutphen,--'This to tell

you that I, making an expedition by order of my master, Sir Philip Sidney,

to reconnoitre the country before Zutphen, where, please God, we will in a

few days meet and vanquish the enemy, fell upon a farm-house, and entering,

asked whether the folk there were favourable to the righteous cause we have

in hand or the contrary. Methinks there never was a joy greater than mine,

when, after some weeks of despair, I found there Mistress Mary Gifford and

her son! Three weeks before the day on which I write, Mistress Gifford had

disappeared from the town of Arnhem, nor could we find a trace of her. I

have before told you how, in the taking of Axel, I got a wound in my back

from the hand of a traitor, when I had rescued his son from the burning

house, where a nest of Jesuits were training young boys in their damnable

doctrines.

'From the moment I was carried wounded to Arnhem I heard nought of the

child, snatched by the villain from my arms, till that evening when, God be

praised, I was led to the very place where he has been nursed by his mother

in a sore sickness. It has been my good fortune to give her, my

ever-beloved mistress, safe convoy to Arnhem, where they are, thank God,

safe under the care of that God-fearing man and worthy divine, Master

George Gifford.

'Here I left them, returning to Flushing, where a strong force is ready to

meet the enemy, ay, and beat them back with slaughter when they advance.

The Earl of Leicester is in command, but the life and soul and wisdom of

the defence lie with my noble master, Sir Philip. To serve under him is

sure one of the greatest honours a man can know. We have his brave brothers

also at hand. Robert is scarce a whit less brave than his brother, and of

Mr Thomas, it is enough to say of him he is a Sidney, and worthy of that

name.

'I write in haste, for the despatches are made up, thus I can say but

little of the hope within my heart, which, God grant, will now at last be

not, as for so many long years, a hope in vain.

'Ambrose Gifford died of the fever, and, having made his confession, was

absolved by the priest, and forgiven by that saint who has suffered from

his sins! This last more for his benefit than the first, methinks! But I

can no more.

'Commend me to our mother and Mistress Lucy Forrester. If I fall in the

coming fight, I pray you, George, remember to protect one dearest to me on

earth.--I rest your loving brother,

'HUMPHREY RATCLIFFE.'

'_Post Scriptum._--The enemy is advancing, and we shall be ordered out to

meet them ere sunset. God defend the right.

H. R.'

* * * * *

'What is the date of that letter, Lucy?' Lady Pembroke asked.

'The twenty-first day of September, Madam.'

'And this is the twenty-sixth. More news will sure be here ere long, and

another victory assured, if it please God. May He protect my brothers in

the fight. But, Lucy, I rejoice to hear of your sister's happiness in the

recovery of her child; and now, in due course, I trust my brother's

faithful servant and friend, Master Humphrey, will have the reward of his

loyalty.'

'Yes, Madam; I hope Mary may, as you say, reward Humphrey.'

'And you, Lucy; sure Master George is worthy that you should grant him his

reward also.'

Lucy's bright face clouded as the Countess said this, and a bright crimson

flush rose to her cheeks.

'Dear Madam,' she said, 'I shrink from giving a meagre return for such

faithful love. Sure ere a woman gives herself to a man till death, she

should make certain that he is the one in all the world for her.'

'I will not contradict this, Lucy; but many women misjudge their own

hearts, and--'

Lady Pembroke hesitated. Then, after a pause, she said,--

'There are some women who make their own idol, and worship it. After all,

it is an unreality to them, because unattainable.'

'Nay, Madam,' Lucy said, with kindling eyes. 'I crave pardon; but the

unattainable may yet be a reality. Because the sun is set on high in the

heavens, it is yet our own when warmed by its beams and brightened by its

shining. True, many share in this, but yet it is--we cannot help it--ours

by possession when we feel its influence. Methinks,' the girl said, her

face shining with a strange light--'methinks I would sooner worship--ay,

and love--the unattainable, if pure, noble and good, than have part and lot

with the attainable that did not fulfil my dream of all that a true knight

and noble gentleman should be.'

Lady Pembroke drew Lucy towards her, and, looking into her face, said,--

'May God direct you aright, dear child! You have done me and mine good

service, and the day, when it comes, that I lose you will be no day of

rejoicing for me. When first you entered my household I looked on you as a

gay and thoughtless maiden, and felt somewhat fearful how you would bear

yourself in the midst of temptations, which, strive as we may, must beset

those who form the household of a nobleman like the Earl, my husband. He

makes wise choice, as far as may be, of the gentlemen attached to his

service; but there is ever some black sheep in a large flock, and

discretion is needed by the gentlewomen who come into daily intercourse

with them. You have shown that discretion, Lucy, and it makes me happy to

think that you have learned much that will be of use to you in the life

which lies before you.'

'Dear Madam,' Lucy said, 'I owe you everything--more than tongue can tell;

and as long as you are fain to keep me near you, I am proud to stay.'

'I feel a strange calm and peace to-day,' Lady Pembroke said, as she leaned

out of the casement and looked down on the scene familiar to her from

childhood. 'It is the peace of the autumn,' she said; 'and I am able to

think of my father--my noble father and dear mother at rest in

Paradise--gathered in like sheaves of ripe corn into the garner--meeting

Ambrosia and the other younger children, whom they surrendered to God with

tears, but not without hope. I am full of confidence that Philip will win

fresh laurels, and I only grieve that the parents, who would have rejoiced

at his success, will never know how nobly he has borne himself in this war.

There will be news soon, and good Sir Francis Walsingham is sure to send it

hither post haste. Till it comes, let us be patient.'

It was the afternoon of the following day that Lucy Forrester crossed the

Medway by the stepping-stones, and went up the hill to Ford Manor.

It was her custom to do so whenever Lady Pembroke was at Penshurst. Her

stepmother was greatly softened by time, and subdued by the yoke which her

Puritan husband, who was now lord and master of the house and all in it,

had laid upon her.

As Lucy turned into the lane, she met Ned coming along with a calf, which

he was leading by a strong rope, to the slaughter-house in the village.

Ned's honest face kindled with smiles as he exclaimed,--

'Well-a-day, Mistress Lucy, you are more like an angel than ever. Did I

ever see the like?'

'Have you heard the good news, Ned?' Lucy asked. 'Mistress Gifford has her

boy safe and sound at Arnhem.'

Ned opened eyes and mouth with astonishment which deprived him of the power

of speech.

'Yes,' Lucy continued, 'and she is a free woman now, Ned, for her husband

is dead.'

'And right good news that is, anyhow,' Ned gasped out at last. 'Dead; then

there's one rogue the less in the world. But to think of the boy. What is

he like, I wonder? He was a young torment sometimes, and I've had many a

chase after him when he was meddling with the chicks. The old hen nearly

scratched his eyes out one day when he tapped the end of an egg to see if

he could get the chick out. Lord, he was a jackanapes, surely; but we all

made much of him.'

'He has been very sick with fever,' Lucy said, 'and, I dare say,

marvellously changed in four years. You are changed, Ned,' Lucy said; 'you

are grown a big man.'

'Ay,' Ned said, tugging at the mouth of the calf, which showed a strong

inclination to kick out, and butt with his pretty head against Ned's ribs.

'Ay; and I _am_ a man, Mistress Lucy. I have courted Avice; and--well--we

were asked in church last Sunday.'

'I am right glad to hear it, Ned; and I wish you happiness. I must go

forward now to the house.'

'I say!--hold! Mistress Lucy!' Ned said, with shamefaced earnestness.

'Don't think me too free and bold--but are you never going to wed? You are

a bit cruel to one I could name.'

This was said with such fervour, mingled with fear lest Lucy should be

offended, that she could not help smiling as she turned away, saying,--

'The poor calf will kick itself wild if you stay here much longer. So,

good-day to you, good Ned; and I will send Avice a wedding gift. I have a

pretty blue kerchief that will suit her of which I have no need; for we are

all in sombre mourning garments for the great and good lord and lady of

Penshurst.'

Lucy found her stepmother seated in the old place on the settle, but not

alone. 'Her master,' as she called him with great truth, was with her, and

two of 'the chosen ones,' who were drinking mead and munching cakes from a

pile on the board.

He invited Lucy to partake of the fare, but she declined, and, having told

her stepmother the news about Mary, she did not feel much disposed to

remain.

'The boy found, do you say?' snarled her stepmother's husband. 'It would

have been a cause of thankfulness if that young limb of the Evil One had

never been found. You may tell your sister, Mistress Lucy, that neither her

boy nor herself will ever darken these doors. We want no Papists here.'

'Nay, nay, no Papists,' echoed one of the brethren, with his mouth full of

cake.

'Nay, nay,' chimed in another, as he set down the huge cup of mead after a

prolonged pull. 'No Papists here to bring a curse upon the house.'

Lucy could not help feeling pity for her stepmother, who sat knitting on

the settle--her once voluble tongue silenced, her mien dejected and

forlorn. Lucy bent down and kissed her, saying in a low voice,--

'You are glad, I know, Mary has found her child.'

And the answer came almost in a whisper, with a scared glance in the

direction of her husband and his guests,--

'Ay, ay, sure _I am glad_.'

Lucy lingered on the rough ground before the house, and looked down upon

the scene before her, trying in vain to realise that this had ever been her

home.

The wood-crowned heights to the left were showing the tints of autumn, and

a soft haze lay in the valley, and brooded over the home of the Sidneys,

the stately walls of the castle and the tower of the church clearly seen

through the branches of the encircling trees, which the storm of a few days

before had thinned of many of their leaves.

The mist seemed to thicken every minute, and as Lucy turned into the road

she gave up a dim idea she had of going on to Hillside to pay her respects

to Madam Ratcliffe, and hastened toward the village. The mist soon became a

fog, which crept up the hillside, and, before she had crossed the plank

over the river, it had blotted out everything but near objects. There

seemed a weight over everything, animate and inanimate. The cows in the

meadow to the right of the bridge stood with bent heads and depressed

tails. They looked unnaturally large, seen through the thick atmosphere;

and the melancholy caw of some belated rooks above Lucy's head, as they

winged their homeward way, deepened the depression which she felt creeping

over her, as the fog had crept over the country side. The village children

had been called in by their mothers, and there was not the usual sound of

boys and girls at play in the street. The rumble of a cart in the distance

sounded like the mutter and mumble of a discontented spirit; and as Lucy

passed through the square formed by the old timbered houses by the lych

gate, no one was about.

The silence and gloom were oppressive, and Lucy's cloak was saturated with

moisture. She entered the house by the large hall, and here, too, was

silence. But in the President's Court beyond, Lucy heard voices, low and

subdued. She listened, with the foreshadowing of evil tidings upon her, and

yet she stood rooted to the spot, unwilling to turn fears into certainty,

suspense into the reality of some calamity.

Presently a gentleman, who had evidently ridden hard, came into the hall,

his cloak and buskins bespattered with mud. He bowed to Lucy, and said,--

'I am a messenger sent post haste from Mr Secretary Walsingham, with

despatches for the Countess of Pembroke. I have sent for one Mistress

Crawley, who, I am informed, is the head of the Countess's ladies. My news

is from the Netherlands.'

'Ill news?' Lucy asked.

'Sir Philip Sidney is sorely wounded in the fight before Zutphen, I grieve

to say.'

'Wounded!' Lucy repeated the word. '_Sore wounded!_' Then, in a voice so

low that it could scarcely be heard, she added, 'Dead! is he dead?'

'Nay, Madam; and we may hope for better tidings. For--'

He was interrupted here by the entrance of Mistress Crawley.

'Ill news!' she exclaimed. 'And who is there amongst us who dare be the

bearer of it to my lady? Not I, not I! Her heart will break if Sir Philip

is wounded and like to die.'

Several young maidens of Lady Pembroke's household had followed Mistress

Crawley into the hall, regardless of the reproof they knew they should

receive for venturing to do so.

'I cannot tell my lady--nay, I dare not!' Mistress Crawley said, wringing

her hands in despair.

'Here is the despatch which Sir Francis Walsingham has committed to me,'

the gentleman said. 'I crave pardon, but I must e'en take yonder seat. I

have ridden hard, and I am well-nigh exhausted,' he continued, as he threw

himself on one of the benches, and called for a cup of sack.

Lucy meanwhile stood motionless as a statue, her wet cloak clinging to her

slender figure, the hood falling back from her head, the long, damp tresses

of hair rippling over her shoulders.

'I will take the despatch to my lady,' she said, in a calm voice, 'if so be

I may be trusted to do so.'

[Illustration: THE BARON'S COURT, PENSHURST CASTLE.]

'Yes, yes!' Mistress Crawley said. 'Go--go, child, and I will follow with

burnt feathers and cordial when I think the news is told,' and Mistress

Crawley hurried away, the maidens scattering at her presence like a

flock of pigeons.

Lucy took the despatch from the hand of the exhausted messenger, and went

to perform her task.

Lady Pembroke was reading to her boy Will some passages from the _Arcadia_,

which, in leisure moments, she was condensing and revising, as a pleasant

recreation after the work of sorting the family letters and papers, and

deciding which to destroy and which to keep.

When Lucy tapped at the door, Will ran to open it.

Even the child was struck by the white face which he saw before him, and he

exclaimed,--

'Mistress Lucy is sick, mother.'

'No,' Lucy said, 'dear Madam,' as Lady Pembroke turned, and, seeing her,

rose hastily. 'No, Madam, I am not sick, but I bring you a despatch from

Sir Francis Walsingham. It is ill news, dearest lady, but not news which

leaves no room for hope.'

'It is news of Philip--Philip!' Lady Pembroke said, trying with trembling

fingers to break the seal and detach the silk cord which fastened the

letter. 'Take it, Lucy, and--and tell me the contents. I cannot see. I

cannot open it!'

Then, while the boy nestled close to his mother, as if to give her strength

by putting his arms round her, Lucy obeyed her instructions, and opening

it, read the Earl of Leicester's private letter, which had accompanied the

official despatch, giving an account of the investment of Zutphen and the

battle which had been fought before its walls. This private letter was

enclosed for Lady Pembroke in that to his Right Honourable and trusted

friend Sir F. Walsingham.

* * * * *

'In the mist of the morning of the 23d, my incomparably brave nephew and

your brother, Philip Sidney, with but five hundred foot and seven hundred

horsemen, advanced to the very walls of Zutphen.

'It was hard fighting against a thousand of the enemy. Philip's horse was

killed under him, and alas! he heightened the danger by his fearless

courage; for he had thrown off his cuisses to be no better equipped than

Sir William Pelham, who had no time to put on his own, and, springing on a

fresh horse, he went hotly to the second charge. Again there was a third

onset, and our incomparable Philip was shot in the left leg.

'They brought him near me, faint from loss of blood, and he called for

water. They brought him a bottle full, and he was about to raise it to his

parched lips, when he espied a poor dying soldier cast greedy, ghastly eyes

thereon. He forbore to drink of the water, and, handing the bottle to the

poor wretch, said,--

'"Take it--thy need is greater than mine."'

* * * * *

'Oh! Philip! Philip!' Lady Pembroke said, 'in death, as in life,

self-forgetting and Christ-like in your deeds.'

Lucy raised her eyes from the letter and they met those of her mistress

with perfect sympathy which had no need of words.

'Doth my uncle say more, Lucy? Read on.'

* * * * *

'And,' Lucy continued, in the same low voice, which had in it a ring of

mingled pride in her ideal hero and sorrow for his pain, 'my nephew would

not take on himself any glory or honour when Sir William Russel, also

sorely wounded, exclaimed,--

'"Oh, noble Sir Philip, never did man attain hurt so honourably or so

valiantly as you," weeping over him as if he had been his mistress.

'"I have done no more," he said, "than God and England claimed of me. My

life could not be better spent than in this day's service." I ordered my

barge to be prepared, and, the surgeons doing all they could to stanch the

blood, Philip was conveyed to Arnhem. He rests now in the house of one

Madam Gruithuissens, and all that love and care can do, dear niece, shall

be done by his and your sorrowing uncle,

LEICESTER.

'Pardon this penmanship. It is writ in haste, and not without tears, for

verily, I seem now to know, as never before, what the world and his kindred

possess in Philip Sidney.

R. L.

'To my dear niece, Mary, Countess of Pembroke, from before Zutphen, on the

twenty-second day of September, in the year of grace 1586. Enclosed in

despatch to the Right Honourable Sir Francis Walsingham.'

* * * * *

When Lucy had finished reading, the Countess took the letter, and rising,

left the room, bidding Will to remain behind.

Mistress Crawley, who was waiting in the corridor to be called in with

cordials and burnt feathers, was amazed to see her lady pass out with a

faint, sad smile putting aside the offered cordial.

'Nay, good Crawley, my hurt lies beyond the cure of aught but that of Him

who has stricken me. I would fain be alone.'

'Dear heart!' Mistress Crawley exclaimed, as she bustled into the room

where Lucy still sat motionless, while Will, with childlike intolerance of

suspense, ran off to seek someone who would speak, and not sit dumb and

white like Lucy. 'Dear heart! I daresay it is not a death-wound. Sure, if

there is a God in heaven, He will spare the life of a noble knight like Sir

Philip. He will live,' Mistress Crawley said, taking a sudden turn from

despair and fear to unreasonable hope. 'He will live, and we shall see him

riding into the Court ere long, brave and hearty, so don't pine like that,

Mistress Lucy; and I don't, for my part, know what right you have to take

on like this; have a sup of cordial, and let us go about our business.'

But Lucy turned away her head, and still sat with folded hands where Lady

Pembroke had left her.

Mistress Crawley finished by emptying the silver cup full of cordial

herself, and, pressing her hand to her heart, said,--'She felt like to

swoon at first, but it would do no good to sit moping, and Lucy had best

bestir herself, and, for her part, she did not know why she should sit

there as if she were moon-struck.'

The days were long over since Mistress Crawley had ordered Lucy, in the

same commanding tones with which she often struck terror into the hearts of

the other maidens, threatening them with dismissal and report of their

ill-conduct to Lady Pembroke.

Lucy had won the place she held by her gentleness and submission, and, let

it be said, by her quickness and readiness to perform the duties required

of her.

So Mistress Crawley, finding her adjurations unheeded, bustled off to see

that the maidens were not gossiping in the ante-chamber, but had returned

to their work.

Lucy was thus left alone with her thoughts, and, in silence and solitude,

she faced the full weight of this sorrow which had fallen on the house of

Sidney, yes, and on her also.

'What right had she to sit and mourn? What part was hers in this great

trouble?' Mistress Crawley's words were repeated again and again in a low

whisper, as if communing with her own heart.

'What right have I? No right if right goes by possession. What right? Nay,

none.'

Then, with a sudden awaking from the trance of sorrow, Lucy rose, the light

came back to her eyes, the colour to her cheeks.

'Right? What right? Yes, the right that is mine, that for long, long years

he has been as the sun in my sky. I have gloried in all his great gifts, I

have said a thousand times that there were none like him, none. I have seen

him as he is, and his goodness and truth have inspirited me in my weakness

and ignorance to reach after what is pure and noble. Yes, I have a right,

and oh! if, indeed, I never see him again, to my latest day I shall thank

God I have known him, Philip, Sir Philip Sidney, true and noble knight.'

* * * * *

There was now a sound of more arrivals in the hall, and Lucy was leaving

the room, fearing, hoping, that there might be yet further tidings, when

the Earl of Pembroke came hastily along the corridor.

'How fares it with my lady, Mistress Forrester? I have come to give her

what poor comfort lies in my power.'

The Earl's face betrayed deep emotion and anxiety.

Will came running after his father, delighted to see him; and in this

delight forgetting what had brought him.

'Father! father! I have ridden old black Joan, and I can take a low fence,

father.'

'Hush now, my son, thy mother is in sore trouble, as we all must be. Take

me to thy mother, boy.'

'Uncle Philip will soon be well of his wound,' the child said, 'the bullet

did not touch his heart, Master Ratcliffe saith.'

The Earl shook his head.

'It will be as God pleases, boy,' and there, in the corridor, as he was

hastening to his wife's apartments, she came towards him with outstretched

arms.

'Oh! my husband,' she said, as he clasped her to his breast. 'Oh! pity me,

pity me! and pray God that I may find comfort.'

'Yes, yes, my sweetheart,' the Earl said, and then husband and wife turned

into their own chamber, Will, subdued at the sight of his mother's grief,

not attempting to follow them, and Lucy was again alone.

CHAPTER XV

THE PASSING OF PHILIP

'Oh, Death, that hast us of much riches reft,

Tell us at least what hast thou with it done?

What has become of him whose flower here left

Is but the shadow of his likeness gone?

Scarce like the shadow of that which he was,

Nought like, but that he like a shade did pass.

But that immortal spirit which was decked

With all the dowries of celestial grace,

By sovereign choice from heavenly choirs select

And lineally derived from angel's race;

Oh, what is now of it become aread?

Ah me, can so divine a thing be dead!

Ah no, it is not dead, nor can it die,

But lives for aye in blissful Paradise,

Where, like a new-born babe it soft doth lie

In bed of lilies wrapped in tender wise,

And dainty violets from head to feet,

And compassed all about with roses sweet.'

From the _Lament of Sir Philip_ by

MARY, COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE.

'At Arnhem, in the month of October 1586; this to my dear sister, Lucy

Forrester.' This was the endorsement of a letter from Mary Gifford, which

was put into Lucy's hands on the day when a wave of sorrow swept over the

country as the news was passed from mouth to mouth that Sir Philip Sidney

was dead.

There had been so many alternations of hope and fear, and the official

reports from the Earl of Leicester had been on the hopeful side, while

those of Robert Sidney and other of his devoted friends and servants, had

latterly been on the side of despair.

Now Mary Gifford had written for Lucy's information an account of what had

passed in these five-and-twenty days, when Sir Philip lay in the house of

Madame Gruithuissens, ministered to by her uncle, Master George Gifford.

The letter was begun on the seventeenth of October, and finished a few days

later, and was as follows:--

* * * * *

'After the last news that I have sent you, dear sister, it will not be a

surprise to you to learn that our watching is at an end. The brave heart

ceased to beat at two of the clock on this seventeenth of October in the

afternoon.

'It has been a wondrous scene for those who have been near at hand to see

and hear all that has passed in the upper chamber of Madame Gruithuissens'

house.

'I account it a privilege of which I am undeserving, that I was suffered,

in ever so small a way, to do aught for his comfort by rendering help to

Madame Gruithuissens in the making of messes to tempt the sick man to eat,

and also by doing what lay in my power to console those who have been

beside themselves with grief--his two brothers.

'What love they bore him! And how earnestly they desire to follow in his

steps I cannot say.

'Mr Robert was knighted after the battle which has cost England so dear,

and my uncle saith that when he went first to his brother's side with his

honour fresh upon him, Sir Philip smiled brightly, and said playfully,--

'"Good Sir Robert, we must see to it that we treat you with due respect

now," and then, turning to Mr Thomas, he said, "Nor shall your bravery be

forgot, Thomas, as soon as I am at Court again. I will e'en commend my

youngest brother to the Queen's Highness. So we will have three knights to

bear our father's name."

'At this time Sir Philip believed he should live, and, indeed, so did most

of those who from day to day watching his courage and never-failing

patience; the surgeon saying those were so greatly in his favour to further

his recovery. But from that morning when he himself discerned the signs of

approaching death, he made himself ready for that great change. Nay, Lucy,

methinks this readiness had been long before assured.

'My uncle returned again and again from the dying bed to weep, as he

recounted to me and my boy the holy and beautiful words Sir Philip spake.

'Of himself, only humbly; of all he did and wrote, as nothing in God's

sight. His prayers were such that my uncle has never heard the like, for

they seemed to call down the presence of God in the very midst of them.

'He was troubled somewhat lest his mind should fail him through grievous

wrack of pain of body, but that trouble was set at rest.

'To the very end his bright intelligence shone, even more and more, till,

as we now believe, it is shining in the perfectness of the Kingdom of God.

'On Sunday evening last, he seemed to revive marvellously, and called for

paper and pencil. Then, with a smile, he handed a note to his brother, Sir

Robert, and bade him despatch it to Master John Wier, a famous physician at

the Court of the Duke of Cleves.

'This note was wrote in Latin, and begged Master Wier to _come_, and _come_

quick. But soon after he grew weaker, and my good uncle asking how he

fared, he replied sorrowfully that he could not sleep, though he had

besought God to grant him this boon. But when my uncle reminded him of One

who, in unspeakable anguish, prayed, as it would seem to our poor blind

eyes, in vain, for the bitter cup did not pass, said,--

'"Nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt!" he exclaimed.'

'"I am fully satisfied and resolved with this answer. No doubt it is even

so."

'There were moments yet of sadness, and he reproached himself for

cherishing vain hopes in sending for Master Wier, but my uncle comforted

him so much that at length he pronounced these memorable words, "I would

not change my joy for the empire of the world."

'I saw him from time to time as I brought to the chamber necessary things.

Once or twice he waved his hand to me, and said, oh, words ne'er to be

forgot,--

'"I rejoice you have your boy safe once more, Mistress Gifford. Be wary,

and train him in the faith of God, and pray that he be kept from the

trammels with which Papacy would enthral the soul."

'He showed great tenderness and care for Lady Frances, dreading lest she

should be harmed by her constant attendance on him.

'Sweet and gentle lady! I have had the privilege of waiting on her from

time to time, and of giving her what poor comfort lay in my power.

'After the settlement of his worldly affairs, Sir Philip asked to have the

last ode he wrote chanted to him, but begged that all the stray leaves of

the _Arcadia_ should be gathered together and burned. He said that it was

but vanity and the story of earthly loves, and he did not care to have it

outlive him.

'My uncle was with him when he begged Sir Robert to leave him, for his

grief could not be controlled. While the sufferer showed strength in

suppressing sorrow, the strong man showed weakness in expressing it.

'Much more will be made known of these twenty-five days following the wound

which caused our loss.

'For myself, I write these scanty and imperfect details for my own comfort,

in knowing that they will be, in a sad sort, a comfort to you, dear sister,

and, I might humbly hope, to your lady also.

'My uncle, praying by Sir Philip's side, after he had addressed his

farewell to his brother, seeing him lie back on the pillow as if

unconscious, said, "Sir, if you hear what I say, let us by some means know

if you have inward joy and consolation of God."

'Immediately his hand, which had been thought powerless, was raised, and a

clear token given to those who stood by that his understanding had not

failed him.

'Once more, when asked the same question, he raised his hands with joined

palms and fingers pointing upwards as in prayer--and so departed.

* * * * *

'I wrote so far, and now I have been with my boy watching the removal of

all that is mortal of this great and noble one from Arnhem to Flushing,

convoyed to the water's edge by twelve hundred English soldiers, trailing

their swords and muskets in the dust, while solemn music played.

'The surgeons have embalmed the poor, worn body, and the Earl of Leicester

has commanded that it be taken to England for burial.

'"Mother," my boy said, as he clasped my hand tightly in his, as the barge

which bore the coffin away vanished in the mist hanging over the river,

"mother, why doth God take hence a brave and noble knight, and leave so

many who are evil and do evil instead of good?"

'How can I answer questions like to this? I could only say to my son,

"There is no answer. Now we only see as in a mirror darkly; at length we

shall see clearer in the Light of God, and His ways are ever just."

'Dear sister, it is strange to have the hunger of my heart satisfied by

God's gift to me of my boy from the very gates of death, and yet to have

that same heart oppressed with sorrow for those who are left to mourn for

the brave and noble one who is passed out of our sight. Yet is that same

heart full of thankfulness that I have recovered my child. It is not all

satisfaction with him. Every day I have to pray that much that he has

learned in the Jesuit school should be unlearned. Yet, God forbid I should

be slow to acknowledge that in some things Ambrose has been trained

well--in obedience, and the putting aside of self, and the mortification of

appetite. Yes, I feel that in this discipline he may have reaped a benefit

which with me he might have missed. But, oh! Lucy, there are moments when I

long with heart-sick longing for my joyous, if wilful child, who, on a fair

spring evening long ago, sat astride on Sir Philip's horse, and had for

his one wish to be such another brave and noble gentleman!

'Methinks this wish is gaining strength, and that the strange repression of

all natural feeling which I sometimes notice, may vanish 'neath the

brighter shining of love--God's love and his mother's.

'You would scarce believe, could you see Ambrose, that he--so tall and

thin, with quiet and restrained movements and seldom smiling mouth--could

be the little torment of Ford Place! Four years have told on my boy, like

thrice that number, and belike the terrible ravages of the fever may have

taken something of his youthful spring away.

'He is tender and gentle to me, but there is reserve.

'On one subject we can exchange but few words; you will know what that

subject is. From the little I can gather, I think his father was not unkind

to him; and far be it from me to forget the parting words, when the soul

was standing ready to take its flight into the unseen world. But oh! my

sister, how wide the gulf set between him, for whom the whole world, I may

say, wears mourning garb to-day--for foreign countries mourn no less than

England--how wide, I say, is the gulf set between that noble life and his,

of whom I dare not write, scarce dare to think.

'Yet God's mercy is infinite in Christ Jesus, and the gulf, which looks so

wide to us, may be bridged over by that same infinite mercy.

'God grant it.

'This with my humble, dutiful sympathy to your dear lady, the Countess of

Pembroke, for whom no poor words of man can be of comfort, from your loving

sister,

MARY GIFFORD.

'_Post Scriptum._--Master Humphrey Ratcliffe has proved a true friend to

me, and to my boy. To him, under God, I owe my child's restoration to

health, and to me.

'He is away with that solemn and sorrowful train I saw embark for Flushing,

nor do I know when he will return.

M. G.'

* * * * *

'At Penshurst, in the month of February 1586,--For you, my dear sister

Mary, I will write some account of the sorrowful pageant, from witnessing

which I have lately returned to Penshurst with my dear and sorely-stricken

mistress, and all words would fail me to tell you how heavy is her grief,

and how nobly she has borne herself under its weight.

'Four long and weary months have these been since the news of Sir Philip's

death came to cast a dark shadow over this country. Much there has been to

harass those who are intimately connected with him. Of these troubles I

need not write. The swift following of Sir Philip's death on that of his

honoured father, Sir Henry Sidney, caused mighty difficulties as to the

carrying out of that last will and testament in which he so nobly desired

to have every creditor satisfied, and justice done.

'But, sure, no man had ever a more generous and worthy father-in-law than

Sir Philip possessed in Sir Francis Walsingham. All honour be to him for

the zeal and care he has shown in the settlement of what seemed at the

first insurmountable mountains of difficulties.

'Of these it does not become me to speak, rather of that day, Thursday last

past, when I was witness of the great ceremony of burying all that was

mortal of him for whom Queen and peasant weep.

'Mary! you can scarce picture to yourself the sight which I looked on from

a casement by the side of my dear mistress. All the long train of mourners

taken from every class, the uplifted standard with the Cross of St George,

the esquires and gentlemen in their long cloaks of mourning garb, these

were a wondrous spectacle. In the long train was Sir Philip's war horse,

led by a footman and ridden by a little page bearing a broken lance,

followed by another horse, like the first, richly caparisoned, ridden by a

boy holding a battle-axe reversed. All this I say I gazed at as a show, and

my mistress, like myself, was tearless. I could not believe, nay, I could

not think of our hero as connected with this pageant. Nay, nor with that

coffin, shrouded in black velvet, carried by seven yeomen, and the pall

borne by those gentlemen who loved him best, his dearest friends, Sir

Fulke Greville, Sir Edward Dyer, Edward Watson, and Thomas Dudley.

'Next came the two brothers, Sir Robert--now Lord of Penshurst--chief

mourner, and behind, poor Mr Thomas Sidney, who was so bowed down with

grief that he could scarce support himself.

'Earls and nobles, headed by my Lord of Leicester, came after; and the

gentlemen from the Low Countries, of whom you will have heard, and all the

great city folk--Lord Mayor and Sheriffs--bringing up the rear.

'My dear mistress and I, with many other ladies of her household, having

watched the long train pass us from the Minories, were conveyed by back

ways to St Paul's, and, from a seat appointed us and other wives of nobles

and their gentlewomen, we were present at the last scene.

'It was when the coffin, beautifully adorned with escutcheons, was placed

on a bier prepared for it, that my mistress said, in a low voice, heard by

me--perhaps by me only,--

'"_Beati mortui qui in Domino moriuntur._"

'These words were the motto on the coffin, and they were the words on which

the preacher tried to enforce his lesson.

'Up to the moment when the double volley was fired, telling us within the

church that the body rested in peace, there had been profound stillness.

'Then the murmur of a multitude sorrowing and sighing, broke upon the ear;

and yet, beyond those whispered words, my lady had not made any sign.

'Now she laid her hand in mine and said,--

'"Let us go and see where they have laid him."

'I gave notice to the gentlemen in attendance that this was my lady's

desire. We had to wait yet for a long space; the throng, so closely packed,

must needs disperse.

'At length way was made for us, and we stood by the open grave together--my

mistress, whose life had been bound up in her noble brother's, and I, to

whom he had been, from my childhood's days to the present, the hero to

whose excellence none could approach--a sun before whose shining other

lights grew dim.

'Do not judge me hardly! Nay, Mary, you of all others will not do this. My

love for him was sacred, and I looked for no return; but let none grudge it

to me, for it drew me ever upwards, and, as I humbly pray, will still do so

till I see him in the other life, whither he has gone.

'Throughout all this pageantry and symbols of woe which I have tried to

bring before you, my dear sister, I felt only that these signs of the great

grief of the whole realm were yet but vain, vain, vain.

'As in a vision, I was fain to see beyond the blackness of funeral pomp,

the exceeding beauty of his soul, who, when he lay a-dying, said he had

fixed his thoughts on these eternal beauties, which cheered his decaying

spirits, and helped him to take possession of the immortal inheritance

given to him by, and in Christ.

'"Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord; blessed be those who mourn,

for they shall be comforted."

'I have finished the task I set myself to do for your edification, dearest

sister. Methought I could scarce get through it for tears, but these did

not flow at my will. Not till this morning, when I betook myself to the

park, where all around are signs of a springing new life, and memories of

Sir Philip in every part, did these tears I speak of have their free way.

All things wakening into life, buds swelling on the stately trees he loved;

birds singing, for the time to pair is come; dew sparkling like the lustre

of precious stones on every twig and blade of grass, daisies with golden

eyes peeping up between. Life, life, everywhere quickening life, and he who

loved life, and to see good days, can walk no more in the old dear paths of

his home, which he trod with so graceful and alert a step, his smile like

the sunshine lying on the gate of the President's Court, under which he

that went out on the November morning in all the glory of his young

manhood, shall pass in no more for ever.

'As I thought of seeing him thus, with the light on his bright hair and

glistening armour, as he took his infant child in his arms and bade her

farewell, I wept, not bitter tears, but those God sends to us as a blessing

when the heart desires some ease of its burden.

'It may be that you will care to read what I have written to the boy

Ambrose. Bid him from me to remember his old desire to be such another

brave and goodly knight as Sir Philip Sidney, and strive to follow him in

all loyal service to his God, his Queen, and his kindred.

'I am thinking often, Mary, of your return to this country. Will it never

come to pass? You told me in your letter in which you gave me those

particulars of Sir Philip's death, that I should scarce believe that

Ambrose was the child I knew at the old home of Ford Place. And scarce will

you believe, when we meet, as meet I pray we shall, I am the same Lucy of

days past. Ever since that time of your grief and sickness, I have changed.

I look back with something which is akin to pity on the vain child who

thought fine clothes and array the likest to enhance the fair face and form

which maybe God has given me. Ay, Mary, I have learned better now. I should

have been a dullard, in sooth, had I not learned much in the companionship

graciously granted me by my honoured mistress. To be near her is an

education, and she has been pleased in many ways to instruct me, not only

in the needlecraft and tapestry work in which she excels, but also in

opening for me the gates of knowledge, and in rehearsing in my ear the

beautiful words of Scripture, and the Psalms in verse, as well as the poems

of Mr Spenser, and, chiefest of all, of those works in prose and verse

which Sir Philip has left behind. Sure, these will never die, and will

tell those who come after us what we possessed and lost!

'Yet, after all, as my mistress saith again and yet again, it was not by

all his deeds of valour and his gifts of learning that he stands so high

forever amongst men. No, nor not by his death and the selfless act which

men are speaking of on all sides, as he lay in the first agony of his sore

wound on the battlefield of Zutphen. Not by these only will his name live,

but by his life, which, for purity and faith, virtue and godliness, loyalty

and truth, may be said to be without peer in this age of which he was so

fair an ornament.

'I dare not say more, lest even you charge me with rhapsody.

'I rest, dear Mary, in all loving and tender affection, your sister,

LUCY FORRESTER.

'To my honoured sister, Mary Gifford, at the house of Master Gifford, in

Arnhem, February 1586. From Penshurst Place, in the county of Kent.'

CHAPTER XVI

FOUR YEARS LATER--1590

'My true love hath my heart and I have his,

By just exchange, one for the other given.

I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss;

There never was a better bargain driven.

His heart in me keeps me and him in one,

My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides;

He loves my heart, for once it was his own,

I cherish his, because in me it bides.'

The sound of these words by Sir Philip Sidney, sung in a sweet melodious

voice, was borne upon the summer air of a fair June evening in the year

1590.

It came through the open casement from the raised seat of the parlour at

Hillbrow, where once Mistress Ratcliffe had sat at her spinning-wheel,

casting her watchful eyes from time to time upon the square of turf lying

between the house and the entrance gate, lest any of her maidens should be

gossiping instead of working.

Mistress Ratcliffe had spun her last thread of flax more than a year ago,

and another mistress reigned in her place in the old house upon the crest

of the hill above Penshurst.

As the last words of the song were sung, and only the lingering chords of

the viol were heard, making a low, sweet refrain, a man who had been

listening unseen to the music under the porch, with its heavy overhanging

shield of carved stone, now came to the open window, which, though raised

some feet above the terrace walk beneath, was not so high but that his head

appeared on a level with the wide ledge of the casement.

Lucy was unconscious of his presence till he said,--

'I would fain hear that song again, Lucy.'

'Nay,' she said with a smile; 'once is enough.'

'Did you think of me as you sang?' he asked.

'Perhaps,' she said, with something of her old spirit. 'Perhaps; but you

must know there is another who hath my heart. I have been singing him to

sleep, and I pray you do not come in with a heavy tramp of your big boots

and wake him. He has been fractious to-day. Speak softly,' she said, as

George exclaimed,--

'The young rascal! I warrant you have near broken your back carrying him to

and fro.'

'My back is not so easy to break; but, George, when will the travellers

come. I have made all things ready these two days and more.'

'They may arrive any moment now,' George said, and then his bright handsome

face disappeared from the window, and in another moment he had come as

quietly as was possible for him, into the sunny parlour, now beautified by

silken drapery, worked by Lucy's clever fingers, and sweet with the

fragrance of flowers in the beau-pot on the hearth and fresh rushes on the

floor.

In a large wooden cradle lay his first-born son--named in memory of one

whom neither husband nor wife could ever forget--Philip. The child was

small and delicate, and Lucy had tasted not only the sweets of motherhood,

but its cares.

Yet little Philip was very fair to look upon. He had the refined features

of his mother, and though his cheeks wanted something of the roundness and

rosiness of healthful infancy, he was, in his parents' eyes, as near

perfection as first-born children are ever apt to be thought!

George paused by the cradle, which was raised on high rockers, and, bending

over it, said,--

'He is sound asleep now,' just touching the little hand lying outside the

coverlet with his great fingers as gently as his mother could have done.

'I won't be jealous of him, eh, Lucy? He is mine as well as yours,

sweetheart.'

'That is a truism,' Lucy said. 'Now, come into the window-seat and talk

low--if you must talk--and let us watch for those who are, I pray God,

drawing near.'

George unfastened his leather pouch which was slung over his shoulder, and

put the bow and quiver against the corner of the bay window.

Then he threw his huge form at his wife's feet on the dais, and said,--

'Do not be too eager for their coming, sweetheart. I half dread their

entrance into this house, which, perchance may disturb our bliss.'

'Fie for shame!' Lucy replied, 'as if Mary could ever be aught but a joy

and a blessing. I am ready to blush for you, George.'

'They will be grand folk, grander than we are, that is, than _I_ am!

Humphrey knighted, and Mary Dame Ratcliffe. Then there is the boy! I am not

sure as to the boy. I confess I fear the early training of the Jesuits may

have left a mark on him.'

'Now, I will listen to no more growlings, George,' his wife said, laying

her small fair hand on the thick masses of her husband's hair, and

smoothing it from his forehead. 'You will please to give the coming guests

a hearty welcome, and be proud to call them brother, sister, and nephew.'

'Nay,' George said. 'Ambrose is no nephew of mine!'

'To think of such folly, when, but a minute agone, you said what is mine is

yours. Ambrose is _my_ nephew, I'd have you to remember, sir.'

'As you will, sweet wife! as you will; but, Lucy, when you see Humphrey

ride up with a train of gentlemen, it may be, and my lady with her

gentlewomen, will you not be sorry that you left everything to be the wife

of a country yeoman, who is unversed in fine doings, and can give you so

little?'

'You give me all I want,' Lucy said; and this time, as she smoothed back

the rebellious curls, she bent and kissed the broad brow which they shaded.

'You give me all I want,' she repeated--'your heart!'

Soon there was a sound of horses' feet, and, with an exclamation, 'Here at

last!' George went to the gate to receive the guests, and Lucy hurried to

the porch.

'The noise and bustle may rouse little Philip,' she said to one of her

maids; 'watch in the parlour till I return.'

In another moment Humphrey had grasped his brother's hand, and, turning,

lifted his wife from the pillion on which she had ridden with her son.

'Mary! Mary!' and Lucy ran swiftly to meet her sister, and held her in a

long embrace.

A meeting after years of separation is always mingled with joy something

akin to pain, and it was not till the first excitement of this reunion was

over that the joy predominated.

Mary was greatly changed; her hair was white; and on her sweet face there

were many lines of suffering. Lucy led her into the parlour, and she could

only sink down upon the settle by her side, and hold her hand in hers,

looking with wistful earnestness into her face.

'So fair still! and happy, dearest child!' Mary whispered in a low voice.

'Happy! and content?'

'_Yes_,' Lucy replied proudly. 'And _you_, Mary, you are happy now?'

'Blest with the tender care of my husband. _Yes_; but, Lucy, I bring him

but a poor reward for all his patient love.'

'Nay, he does not think so, I'll warrant,' Lucy said. 'You will soon be

well and hearty in your native air, and the colour will come back to your

cheeks and the brightness to your eyes.'

'To rival yours, dear child! Nay, you forget how time, as well as sickness

and sorrow, have left its mark on me.'

'And Ambrose?' Lucy asked. 'You have comfort in him?'

'Yes,' Mary said. 'Yes, but, dear heart, the vanished days of childhood

return not. Ambrose is old for his sixteen years; and, although dear, dear

as ever, I am prone to look back on those days at Ford Manor, when he was

mine, all mine, before the severance from me changed him.'

'Sure he is not a Papist now?' Lucy said. 'I trust not.'

'Nay, he is not professedly a Papist, but the teaching of those four years

sowed seed. Yet he loves me, and is a dutiful son to me, and to his--his

new father. I ought to be satisfied.'

Little Philip now turned in his cradle, awoke by the entrance of the two

brothers and Ambrose, who had been to the stables to see that the grooms

and horses were well cared for.

Lucy raised Philip in her arms, and Mary said,--

'Ay! give him to me, sweet boy. See, Ambrose, here is your cousin; nay, I

might say your brother, for it is a double tie between you.'

The tall stripling looked down on the little morsel of humanity with a

puzzled expression.

'He is very small, methinks,' he said.

This roused Lucy's maternal vanity.

'Small, forsooth! Do you expect a babe of eight months to be a giant. He is

big enow for my taste and his father's. Too big at times, I vow, for he is

a weight to carry.'

Ambrose felt he had made a mistake, and hastened to add,--

'He has wondrous large eyes;' and then he bent over his mother and said,

'You should be resting in your own chamber, mother.'

'Yes; well spoken, my boy,' Humphrey said. 'Mary is not as hearty as I

could desire,' he added, turning to George. 'Maybe Lucy will take her to

her chamber, and forgive her if she does not come to sup in the hall.'

Lucy gave little Philip to his father, who held him in awkward fashion,

till the nurse came to the rescue and soothed his faint wailing by the

usual nonsense words of endearment which then, as now, nurses seem to

consider the proper language in which to address babies.

When the two brothers were alone together that night, Humphrey said,--

'It is all prosperous and well with you now, George. You have got your

heart's desire, and your fair lady looks fairer, ay, and happier than I

ever saw her.'

'Ay, Humphrey, it is true. At times I wonder at my own good fortune. I had

my fears that she would hanker after fine things and grand folk, but it is

not so. She went with the boy to Wilton two months agone to visit the

Countess of Pembroke, who holds her in a wonderful affection. The boy is

her godson, and she has made him many fine gifts. I was fearful Lucy would

find this home dull after a taste of her old life; but, Heaven bless her,

when I lifted her from the horse with the child on her return, she kissed

me and said, "I am right glad to get home again." I hope, Humphrey, all is

well and prosperous with you also?'

'I may say yes as regards prosperity, beyond what I deserve. I have a place

about the Court, under my Lord Essex, and I was knighted, as you know, for

what they were pleased to call bravery in the Armada fight. After we lost

that wise and noble gentleman, Sir Philip Sidney, everything went crooked

under the Earl of Leicester, and Spain thought she was going to triumph and

crush England with the Armada. But God defended the right, and the victory

is ours. Spain is humbled now. Would to God Sir Philip Sidney had lived to

see it and share the glory.'

George listened as his brother spoke, with flashing eyes, of the final

discomfiture of Spain, and then noticed how his whole manner changed to

softness and sadness, as he went on to say,--

'My heart's desire in the possession of the one woman whom I ever loved is

granted, but, George, I hold her by a slender thread. I have brought her

here with the hope that she may gather strength, but, as you must see, she

is but the shadow of her old self. The good old man at Arnhem counselled me

to take her to her native air, and God grant it may revive her. She is

saint-like in her patience and in her love for me. Heaven knows I am not

worthy of her, yet let me bless God I have her to cherish, and, by all

means that in me lies, fan the flame of her precious life, trusting to see

it burn brightly once more. But, George, I fear more than I hope. What will

all honours and Court favour be to me if I lose her?'

'You will keep her,' George said, in the assured tone that those who are

happy often use when speaking to others who are less happy than themselves.

'You will keep her, Humphrey, she shall have milk warm from one of my best

cows, and feed on the fat of the land. Oh! we will soon see the Dame Mary

Ratcliffe fit to go to Court and shine there.'

Humphrey shook his head.

'That is the last thing Mary would desire.' Then changing his tone, he went

on: 'What think you of Ambrose, George?'

'He is big enow, and handsome. Is he amenable and easy to control?'

'I have no cause to find fault with him; he lacks spirit somewhat, and has

taken a craze to be a scholar rather than a soldier. He has been studying

at Goettingen, and now desires to enter Cambridge. The old ambition to be a

soldier and brave knight, like Sir Philip Sidney, died out during those

four years spent in the Jesuit school, and he is accounted marvellously

clever at Latin and Greek.'

'Humph,' George said. 'Let us hope there is no lurking Jesuitry in him. The

worse for him if there is, for the Queen is employing every means to run

the poor wretches to earth. The prisons are chock full of them, and the

mass held in abhorrence.'

'Ambrose was but a child when with the Jesuits--scarce twelve years old

when I came upon him, and recovered him for his mother. No, no, I do not

fear Papacy for him, though, I confess, I would rather see him a rollicking

young soldier than the quiet, reserved fellow he is. One thing is certain,

he has a devotion for his mother, and for that I bless the boy. He

considers her first in everything, and she can enter into his learning with

a zest and interest which I cannot.'

'Learning is not everything,' George said, 'let me hope so, at any rate, as

I am no scholar.'

'No; but it is a great deal when added to godliness,' Humphrey replied. 'We

saw that in the wonderful life of Sir Philip Sidney. It was hard to say in

what he excelled most, learning or statesmanship or soldiering. Ay, there

will never be one to match him in our time, nor in any future time, so I

am ready to think. There's scarce a day passes but he comes before me,

George, and scarce a day but I marvel why that brilliant sun went down

while it was high noonday. Thirty-one years and all was told.'

'Yes,' George said; 'but though he is dead he is not forgotten, and that's

more than can be said of thousands who have died since he died--four years

ago; by Queen and humble folk he is remembered.'

George Ratcliffe's prophecy seemed likely to be fulfilled. Mary Gifford

gained strength daily, and very soon she was able to walk in the pleasance

by Hillside Manor, which George had laid out for Lucy, in those long

waiting days when he gathered together all that he thought would please her

in the 'lady's chamber' he had made ready for her, long before his dream of

seeing her in it was realised.

Gradually Mary was able to extend her walks, and it was on one evening in

July that she told Lucy she should like to walk down to Ford Manor.

Lucy remonstrated, and said she feared if she allowed her to go so far

Humphrey and Ambrose, who had gone away to London for a few days, would be

displeased with her for allowing it.

'I would fain go there with you and see Ned and old Jenkins. The newcomers

have kept on their services, I hope?'

'Yes, all things are the same, except that the poor old stepmother and her

ill-conditioned husband have left it, and are living in Tunbridge. He

preaches and prays, and spends her savings, and, let us hope, he is

content. The dear old place was going to wrack and ruin, so Sir Robert's

orders came that they were to quit.'

'Poor old place! To think,' Lucy said, 'that I could ever feel an affection

for it, but it is so nevertheless.'

So, in the golden light of sunset, the two sisters stood by the old thorn

tree on the bit of ground in front of Ford Manor once more.

Ned and Jenkyns had bidden them welcome, and, by the permission of the

present owners of the farm, they had gone through the house, now much

improved by needful repairs and better furnishing. But, whatever changes

there were in the house and its inhabitants, the smiling landscape

stretched out before the two sisters as they stood by the crooked back of

the old thorn tree was the same. The woodlands, in the glory of the summer

prime, clothed the uplands; the tower of the church, the stately walls of

the Castle of Penshurst, the home of the noble race of Sidney, stood out

amidst the wealth of foliage of encircling trees as in years gone by. The

meadows were sloping down to the village, where the red roofs of the

cottages clustered, and the spiral columns of thin blue smoke showed where

busy housewives were preparing the evening meal at the wood fire kindled on

the open hearth. The rooks were flying homewards with their monotonous

caw. From a copse, just below Ford Manor, the ring-doves were repeating the

old, old song of love. As Mary Gifford stood with her face turned towards

the full light of the evening sky, she looked again to Lucy like the Mary

of old. Neither spoke; their hearts were too full for words, but they

clasped each other's hands in a silence more eloquent than speech.

Both sisters' thoughts were full of the past rather than the present.

Mary seemed to see before her the little fair-haired boy who had been so

eager to mount Sir Philip's horse, and Sir Philip, with his radiant smile

and gracious kindliness, so ready to gratify the boy's desire, as he set

him on the saddle.

And Mary heard, too, again the ringing voice as little Ambrose said,--

'I would fain be a noble gentleman and brave soldier like Mr Philip Sidney.

I would like to ride with him far, far away.'

She recalled now the pang those words had caused her, and how she dreaded

the parting which came all too soon, and had been so bitter to her. Now,

she had her son restored to her, but she felt, as how many mothers have

felt since, a strange hunger of the soul, for her vanished child! Ambrose,

quiet and sedate, and eager to be an accomplished scholar, tall, almost

dignified, for his sixteen years, was indeed her son, and she could thank

God for him. Yet she thought with a strange regret, of the days when he

threw his arms round her in a rough embrace, or trotted chattering by her

side as she went about the farm, or, still sweeter memory, murmured in his

sleep her name, and looked up at her with a half-awakened smile, as he

found her near, and felt her kisses on his forehead.

From these thoughts Mary was roused by Ambrose himself,--

'Mother,' he said, 'this is too far for you to walk. You should not have

ventured down the hill. We have returned to find the house empty; and my

father is in some distress when he heard you had come so far.'

Ambrose spoke as if he were constituted his mother's caretaker; and Lucy,

laughing, said,--

'You need not look so mighty grave about it, Ambrose; your mother is not

tired. Forsooth, one would think you were an old man giving counsel, rather

than a boy.'

Ambrose disliked of all things to be called a boy; and, since his first

remark about the baby Philip, there had often been a little war of words

between aunt and nephew.

'Boys may have more wits than grown folk sometime,' he replied. 'Here comes

my father, who does not think me such a fool as, perchance, you do, Aunt

Lucy. He has brought a horse to carry my mother up the steep hill.'

'Well, I will leave her to your double care,' Lucy said. 'I see George

follows a-foot. We will go up the hill path, and be at home before you,

I'll warrant.' She ran gaily away to meet George; and as Mary was lifted

on the pillion by Humphrey, Ambrose taking his place by his mother, he

turned in the opposite direction, and, following Lucy and her husband, was

soon out of sight.

Mother and son rode slowly along the familiar path which leads into the

high road from Penshurst.

The glow of sunset was around them, and the crimson cloth mantle Mary wore

shone in the westering light. So they pass out of sight, and the shadows

gather over the landscape, and evening closes in. As a dream when one

awaketh is the history of the past, and the individual lives which stand

out in it are like phantoms which we strive, perhaps in vain, to quicken

into life once more, and clothe them with the vivid colours for which

imagination may lend its aid. Of the central figure of this story of the

spacious times of great Elizabeth, we may say--with the sister who loved

him with no common love--

'Ah, no! his spirit is not dead--nor can it die,

But lives for aye in blissful Paradise,

Where, like a new-born babe, it soft doth lie,

In bed of lilies--wrapped in tender wise,

And compassed all about with roses sweet,

And dainty violets from head to feet.'

THE END.

EDINBURGH

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